Page 63 of Make The Cut

I guess I should be impressed he still remembers the pizza we always ate when we were kids and River was forced to babysit us. Not wanting—or knowing—how to cook, we’d always order the same pizza for the two of us to split, and River would just eat a mountain of bread sticks.

River also happened to have an in with the local pizza place, since he was dating the daughter of the pizza parlour’s owner, and we’d get half off the pizzasandspeedy delivery.

Now, I guess we still get special treatment. Just for different reasons.

“You got sunburned,” I notice, pointing at a red patch of peeling skin on his arm.

For some reason, the observation makes his cheeks flush as red as his sunburn. He tugs on aMake The Cuthoodie over his t-shirt, combating the ferocious gusts of air conditioning that are keeping his apartment a frosty sixty-eight degrees.

“It was pretty hot in the Philippines. How’d you know where to send the package, anyway?”

“I messaged Paulo. We’re Facebook friends.” I study him. Is he upset that I sent it? Happy that we can be a normal brother and sister again?

Mind-reading has never been my strong suit.

“Did you hear about the storm, then?” He leans forward, elbow on his thigh. On the screen, Ross gets mad because his boss ate his sandwich. I cringe as David Schwimmer’s character says the wordmoist.

“I heard about the concert you gave, if that’s what you’re asking.” I thought it would be all too easy to slip back into familiar banter with my brother. But now, the secrets press against us, keeping us apart, building a wall that might very well tumble like a house of cards if he asks too many questions.

“I survived the storm if that’s what you’re asking,” he says, his tone deadpan. He’d sound angry, but I see the corner of his mouth quirk up. We may care about each other. But it’s buried beneath layers of hurt and betrayal.

“You seem different.” Before he left for the Philippines—and before that, before he and I had our falling out—he was always high-strung, on-edge, always pushing towards his next goal and moving toward his next destination, never bothering to rest and appreciate how far he’d come.

I guess we both inherited that work ethic and overachieving attitude from our mom, who always said that whatever we did, we should be the best at it. Now, I’m nearly at the rock-bottom of my career even with Naoya’s help, and Ryder’s… Well, I think the scandal made him hit rock bottom, too, even if he won’t admit it.

Now, even though he has so many reasons to be stressed, he seems more relaxed, drumming the fingers of his free hand on the coffee table, an interesting beat that I haven’t heard him play before.

“Yeah, well, I could say the same for you.” He gestures to my outfit.

I glance down at the clothes: a pink puff-sleeve top paired with an orange miniskirt. “I like colour.”

“You used to wear black all the time.”

I shrug. “That was forLa Mode. And don’t change the subject. You seem less… type-A.”

“Type-A?” He snorts. “When have I ever been type-A?”

“Oh, I don’t know, when you’d be in the recording studio for days at a time, refusing to leave until your work was perfect?” I scoff, remembering the time it was his birthday and he didn’t even celebrate, preferring to hole up in the studio all weekend, not even bothering to respond to River’s requests for an invite to his birthday party.

“That’s not type-A… That’s perfectionism. Huh. I guess I am alittle, well,wasa little, work-obsessed.” He runs a hand through his hair as the doorbell rings. “That must be the pizza.”

While he goes to get the pizza, I pick up my phone, then realize it’s his. An Instagram notification pops up—I didn’t even realize he ran his own Instagram account instead of giving the task to a PA—and shows that someone called Isla Romero has a new post. Dropping his phone, I do a quick search on my own device to find out who she is. A fellow musician? An actress? The name sounds vaguely familiar, but I have no idea who she could be.

What I find surprises me. She’s a journalist, and a music critic, and runs a YouTube channel that I’m subscribed to calledOn The Beatmusic reviews.

Why would my brother care enough about her to get notified when she posts?

I check out her Instagram account on my own phone, only to find that it’s set to private. Wow. So she’s not even a public figure.

“Hey.” Ryder reappears with the pizza, unceremoniously dropping the box onto the coffee table. “Food’s here.”

I tuck my phone into the pocket of my skirt. “Oh, great. I’m starving.”

Not just for food. Also for information on what my brother’s been doing for the past few months…

* * *

Even a weekend of snooping through the tabloids to find out what, exactly, my brother was doing in the Philippines can’t distract me from Monday morning, which looms over me like a sword above a king’s crown.

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